I am not one to use vulgar language in any way. Nevertheless, my father taught me an age old saying that sticks with me to this day, and it perfectly conveys the message I wish to convey in this blog post. He wrote the word ASSUME on a piece of paper and declared the following, pointing to each letter in the word: "When you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME." Unfortunately, genealogists can be the biggest "asses." With a plethora of online public ancestry trees and rese

Once you’ve gathered what you can from home and family (see How to Start Your Family Tree ), the next big question is: what records do I look for? The fact of the matter is that the majority of records genealogists use weren't made for genealogists. Our ancestors were included in records as they interacted with some higher agency, typically a governmental authority or church body, so the purpose of the records were most likely not to help a future descendant uncover their an

Whenever I talk with hobbyists or other professionals about starting genealogical research, the same question always gets brought up—where do you begin? Do you jump on Ancestry and start clicking? Do you start calling relatives? Or do you dig through that old box in the closet full of black-and-white photos? The truth is, there’s no wrong place to start. Getting started is the hardest part. But there are steps to take that can prove to be more useful than others. In this post